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Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings, as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branch of heraldry, concerns the design and transmission of the heraldic achievement. The achievement, or armorial bearings usually includes a coat of arms on a shield, helmet and crest, together with any accompanying devices, such as supporters, badges, heraldic banners and mottoes.
Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knight, but lower than a viscount or count. Often, barons hold their fief – their lands and income – directly from the monarch. Barons are less often the vassals of other nobles. In many kingdoms, they were entitled to wear a smaller form of a crown called a coronet.
Esquire is usually a courtesy title.
The Right Honourable the Lord Lyon King of Arms, the head of Lyon Court, is the most junior of the Great Officers of State in Scotland and is the Scottish official with responsibility for regulating heraldry in that country, issuing new grants of arms, and serving as the judge of the Court of the Lord Lyon, the oldest heraldic court in the world that is still in daily operation.
An officer of arms is a person appointed by a sovereign or state with authority to perform one or more of the following functions:
In heraldry, cadency is any systematic way to distinguish arms displayed by descendants of the holder of a coat of arms when those family members have not been granted arms in their own right. Cadency is necessary in heraldic systems in which a given design may be owned by only one person at any time, generally the head of the senior line of a particular family.
In Scotland, a baron or baroness is the head of a feudal barony, also known as a prescriptive barony. This used to be attached to a particular piece of land on which was situated the caput or essence of the barony, normally a building, such as a castle or manor house. Accordingly, the owner of the piece of land containing the caput was called a baron or baroness. According to Grant, there were around 350 identifiable local baronies in Scotland by the early fifteenth century and these could mostly be mapped against local parish boundaries. The term baron was in general use from the thirteenth century to describe what would have been known in England as a knight of the shire.
A laird is the owner of a large, long-established Scottish estate. In the traditional Scottish order of precedence, a laird ranked below a baron and above a gentleman. This rank was held only by those lairds holding official recognition in a territorial designation by the Lord Lyon King of Arms. They are usually styled [name] [surname] of [lairdship]. However, since "laird" is a courtesy title, it has no formal status in law.
The law of heraldic arms governs the "bearing of arms", that is, the possession, use or display of arms, also called coats of arms, coat armour or armorial bearings. Although it is believed that the original function of coats of arms was to enable knights to identify each other on the battlefield, they soon acquired wider, more decorative uses. They are still widely used today by countries, public and private institutions and by individuals. The earliest writer on the law of arms was Bartolus de Saxoferrato. The officials who administer these matters are called pursuivants, heralds, or kings of arms. The law of arms is part of the law in countries which regulate heraldry, although not part of common law in England and in countries whose laws derive from English law.
Sir Thomas Innes of Learney (1893–1971) was a Scottish officer of arms who was Lord Lyon from 1945 to 1969.
Heraldry in Scotland, while broadly similar to that practised in England and elsewhere in western Europe, has its own distinctive features. Its heraldic executive is separate from that of the rest of the United Kingdom.
The cross moline is a Christian cross, constituting a kind of heraldic cross.
The Scottish Gaelic word clann means children. In early times, and possibly even today, Scottish clan members believed themselves to descend from a common ancestor, the founder of the clan, after whom the clan is named. The clan chief is the representative of this founder, and represents the clan. In the Scottish clan system, a chief is greater than a chieftain (ceann-cinnidh), a designation applied to heads of branches of a clan. Scottish clans that no longer have a clan chief are referred to as armigerous clans.
The British nobility is made up of the peerage and the (landed) gentry. The nobility of its four constituent home nations has played a major role in shaping the history of the country, although the hereditary peerage now retain only the rights to stand for election to the House of Lords, dining rights there, position in the formal order of precedence, the right to certain titles, and the right to an audience with the monarch. More than a third of British land is in the hands of aristocrats and traditional landed gentry.
The coat of arms of the City of Edinburgh Council is the coat of arms belonging to The City of Edinburgh Council, the local authority of Edinburgh, Scotland. The coat of arms was registered with the Lord Lyon King of Arms in 1732, having been used unofficially for several centuries previously. The central symbol is a castle, representing Edinburgh Castle.
A slogan is used in Scottish heraldry as a heraldic motto or a secondary motto. It usually appears above the crest on a coat of arms, though sometimes it appears as a secondary motto beneath the shield. The word slogan dates from 1513. It is a variant of the earlier slogorn, which was an Anglicisation of the Scottish Gaelic sluagh-ghairm. In other regions it is called war-cry.
The Stewarton coat of arms represents Stewarton, in East Ayrshire, Scotland. It is described in the public Register of all Arms and Bearing in Scotland as follows:
Per pale Or and Azure: a fess chequy per pale, dexter of the Second and Argent, sinister of the Third and Gules, surmounted of a shakefork, Sable overall, all between a bonnet of the second, with a round tassel of the Fourth, and an annulet of the First, stoned of the Fourth, in chief, and another similar bonnet and a mullet of the Third in base.
Above the Shield is placed a coronet a circlet richly chased from which are issuant four thistle leaves(one and two halves visible) and four pine cones(two visible) or, and in an Escrol below the same this Motto "Knit Weel."
By demonstration of which Ensigns Armorial the Stewarton and District Community is, amongst all Nobles and in all Places of Honor, to be taken, numbered, accounted and received as an Incorporation Noble in the Noblesse of Scotland.
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characteristics associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles or simply formal functions, and vary by country and by era. Membership in the nobility, including rights and responsibilities, is typically hereditary and patrilineal.
The Court of the Lord Lyon, or Lyon Court, is a standing court of law, based in New Register House in Edinburgh, which regulates heraldry in Scotland. The Lyon Court maintains the register of grants of arms, known as the Public Register of All Arms and Bearings in Scotland, as well as records of genealogies.
References
- ↑ Edmondson, Complete Body of Heraldry, p. 154
- ↑ Innes of Learney, T. (1940), The Nature of Armorial Bearings, Notes and Queries, 178, 363.
- ↑ Innes of Learney, T. (1939) The Armorial House or Family and the Theory of Armorial Quartering in England, Notes and Queries, 177, 164.
- ↑ Innes of Learney, T. (1939) The Armorial House or Family and the Theory of Armorial Quartering in England, Notes and Queries, 177, 186.
- ↑ e.g. Innes of Learney, T. (1950), Armorial Tailzies in Scotland, Notes and Queries, 178, 256-257.
- ↑ "As he giveth, so shall he take away". The Cheshire Heraldry Web Journal (Blog). 18 July 2008. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 2 September 2021.